


A Long Walk Up

by lizardking



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 15:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardking/pseuds/lizardking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The black out lasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Walk Up

Later, when she's showering in the dark because the power's still out, she realizes that Brian is even more of an idiot than she'd previously thought. And she's dumb, too, because of course Brian knew she was with Will. Of course he knew, and he had called anyway, and she went. 

She doesn't precisely know why she had done the cheating thing, but she's sure it had something to do with loose ends and that odd irrepressible tug she'd always felt toward Brian's talent in addition to his other physical attractions, like how slender and tall he is and how she liked being towered over that way. But his writing drew her to him in the first place and gave her what she felt was an approximation of his character—witty, smart, charming, sharp, thoughtful. All those good qualities condensed on the slick pages of his magazine like a sketch that's never filled in. His writing was good, but she'd read much better even back then. And eventually she realized why. Brian wasn't generous. His subjects never superseded his ego. 

Still, it would be unfair now to try and negate the attraction, the way he'd once made her laugh, the absurd happiness she felt when his hands had closed over her hips for the first time and he'd kissed her up against a cab right before she went off on her first assignment that might have gotten her killed. It was like being drunk, or drugged. Not all together wonderful, but hardly unpleasant. It was not what she had felt for Will, it was nothing compared to what she felt when Will stormed into her life. She knows what sort of guilty cliche she sounds like. She knows.

She's toweling off her hair when she hears the pounding on her door. She wonders why nobody had buzzed, and then realizes, the electricity is still out. She peers through the peephole, hoping for…well, not him.

"Hey." Brian looks sweaty, and only a little bit sheepish. "My new apartment's on the 30th floor. And I decided to take a chance and see if you still lived in the same building."

She moves back about an inch, just enough space for him to squeeze by. She doesn't know if she means to do it, but he takes it, and she shuts the door.

"Don't you have other friends?" she asks. Of course he does. She's not necessarily one of them. 

"You live closest to the newsroom, and no one else has an apartment number lower than 20. So?"

"So what?"

"Can I stay?"

"Couch," she says, and slips back to her bedroom. She shuts the door, and locks it. Hesitates. She doesn't want him to think he gets to her. She also doesn't want to issue some unconscious invitation. She unlocks the door.

\----

The next morning, the sun trickles in, setting the dust ablaze. Not for the first time, Mac thinks she ought to hire someone to give her apartment a good scrub. When she and Will were together they'd spent most of the time at his place, where she delighted in messing up the pristine newness of his penthouse. She left her expensive eyeliner in the bathroom, drug store hair ties and bobby pins all over the living room as evidence of their intimacy. He retaliated by sending his cleaning lady to her apartment, but she knew—he'd loved the bits and pieces she'd left behind. He'd loved everything, a fact she knows to be true but can hardly fathom now.

The knock on her bedroom door startles her, and she remembers. Brian. Jesus.

"Mac, I'm gonna shower," he says. 

"That's fine," she calls, clutching the sheets.

"I have to come in." 

She yanks the sheet up to her neck.

"Okay." 

The door handle twists, and Brian looks at her. The familiar hunger is there, she sees it in the lines of his body and in his brown eyes. Brown is the wrong color, his height and arm muscles are all wrong.

"Go shower," Mac says, firmly, like she's reporting the news. "Use whatever you want." 

\-----

Will feels like hurking up his egg and sausage sandwich. He's just hauled his ass up a zillion flights of stairs and his heart is banging against his ribs like the traitorous muscle is planning an escape. He really feels sick, and it's probably a combination of the stairs and the heat and all the cigarettes he'd been smoking lately and the fact that he'd just seen Mac and Brian get out the same taxi. There are dozens of explanations—an early interview, maybe, but Will has the sneaking suspicion that he is being cuckolded all over again. But he and Mac aren't together, so that's ridiculous, and, really, impossible. 

Had it been to test Mac's mettle, inviting Brenner to the newsroom, making him write the story? To see if, at first opportunity, she'd fall back into his—and now he really feels like puking—arms or bed or whatever? It hardly mattered. Mac wasn't his. He reminded himself of this fact often enough, when the desire to throw her to the wolves warred with the more natural instinct to protect her. 

That first night, her first night back in the studio, her voice in his ear once again, it was like every dream he'd had for the past three years. He hated it and he hated her, but mostly he hated himself, for waving his arms and shouting about YouTube, for his apparent inability to get over anything.

"Will!" 

Jim's practically shouting his name, hovering far too close for comfort. Will struggles to focus. "You okay?" the younger man asks.

"Yep," Will says, beating back in the bile. This is truly the end, he thinks. She's moved from being a total pain in his ass to causing actual physical illness.

The glass door bangs open and Mac storms into the bullpen, followed more slowly by Brian Brenner. Her hair, usually sleek, is a wavy mess he knows she'll gather up in a ponytail any second. This is what she looks like when she hasn't used a hair dryer or if it's especially hot outside. Or after she's just had sex. Potentially all three, he remembers one time—

"Fuck," Will mutters, and retreats to his office, where it's approximately 92 degrees and there's a bottle of his second-favorite Scotch. He will survive this. He has to survive this or he will actually put his head through a fucking wall and then it won't matter if he lives to see The Ballad of Mac and Brian, Round Three, because he'll have his head in a wall and so many other, more pressing problems.

He deludes himself into thinking that this is a workable solution. He keeps it up for approximately half the morning, until he smells her, and then smells him, and keeps drinking, and the lights come back on.


End file.
